Life

Winter Bucket List

Thanksgiving has passed and there are Christmas decorations everywhere, so it’s time to embrace the season and bust out a winter bucket list!

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Happy December first! Can you believe it’s here already?? It seemed like fall was pretty mild here temperature-wise, but we’ve can already see snow on the mountains and I’m excited for winter!

Fall Bucket List Recap

Fall felt like a season of getting our feet under us, in a good way. We started building routines, settling into our apartment, getting to know our town. I’m enrolled in Italian classes, which I’m LOVING, and we checked off lots of important logistical things like buying a second car, mastering the local train system, and figuring out how to pay our wifi bill. 

We had two sets of visitors already, which I joked with both made them my guinea pigs on where to take future guests. By the end of our time here, I suspect I’ll have a tourist plan running like clockwork!

Over the past few months, we’ve done some major traveling. We’ve visited Austria, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and several cities in Italy since Labor Day. As glamorous as all the travel sounds, we’ve done most of it on weekends before this month! The hubs is working like crazy and this past week (the week of Thanksgiving) is the first day off he’s taken since we moved here. So it’s been especially nice this week to move at a slower pace than our usual squeezing adventure into a weekend. 

While he’s on a traditional work schedule, I get to do a bit more gallivanting! I spent almost all of November traveling, which was crazy fun. I saw a great mix of old favorites and new, and you’d better believe I’m planning to do a ton of writing and editing over the next few weeks to share everything with you!  

After exploring Italy with friends for two weeks and Salzburg and Munich with Logan for one, it feels good to sleep in my own bed and cook my own meals for a bit. Plus, eating my weight in heavy but delicious German food means I’m considering doing a week of gluten-free, almost-vegetarian meals because I’m definitely feeling the need for a bit of a detox. Guess your food choices affecting your body is one of the pesky parts of getting older, right? 😉 

Venice in the rain
A rainy fall, but it didn’t stop us exploring with friends and family who came to visit!

Life This Winter


After basically skipping over Halloween and Thanksgiving – we were traveling on both holidays – I’m ready to get Christmas in full swing over here! Which, yes, I know the internet has already been blowing up with Christmas decor and music for weeks now, but I’m just now starting to decorate. I think I’m going to get a fake tree this year, which to many of you sounds like no big deal, but to me it’s a Very Big Deal. I grew up with real trees and you just can’t beat that smell in your house. But for this phase of life, it might be the best choice. I’ll let you know. 

Speaking of Christmas, all that travel means I managed to knock out most of my gift shopping already! Good thing, because I have to mail most of it halfway around the world, so I’ll be hitting up the post office this week to check it off. How far along are you? If you need some inspiration, check out my gift guides for the traveler and for the cook. I either use and love or desperately want everything on both lists. 

Christmas market goodness!

Looking ahead to winter, I’m excited for a balance of cozy, restful weekends in and traveling to new places. We’ve booked another Christmas market trip in just a few weeks, and I’m also hoping to make my way around to see as many local markets as possible! 

I’ve noticed that Europeans don’t seem to be as bothered by the shorter daylight hours, and that’s been inspiring me to make the most of it – embracing hygge, or coziness, instead of dreading the darker evenings. 

So with that in mind, here’s this year’s winter bucket list! 

Whether you leave them out for Santa or eat them all yourself, these sugar cookies are the perfect Christmas cookies! | Teaspoon of Nose

Winter Bucket List 

Christmas market Munich

What’s on your bucket list for winter? Do you plan more by month, year, or season? I find that doing a winter list instead of going by the calendar year helps me see the season as continuous, rather than the end-of-year hustle and then starting all over in January. 

As always, I made a winter bucket list perfect for embracing the season – hot drinks, cozy movie nights, playing in the snow, and embracing holiday traditions! It’s exclusively available to my email list, so jump on right now to get yours! 

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